Squash Blossom Necklace

wearable art. You will find the necklace surrounded by debate. It is speculated that the blossom comes from the pomegranate, but other theories exist. The same is true about the naja. Historians will take you back to the Roman Empire for the inspiration behind the design, while others tell of a Navajo origin. No matter where the designs of the squash blossom came from they are now thought of as Native American. Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi artists have all made these spectacular pieces, of course following the influences of their People's preferred style. We have an assortment of these necklaces on our online Trading Post, so make sure you check them out, http://www.perrynulltrading.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?cat=9&q=squash+blossom.

In Gallup, New Mexico things are done a little differently than, well say Las Vegas where “Pawn Stars” is filmed. When our customers come into the shop it is never a question of, “what would you like to do, pawn it or sell it”. Here we are always pawning and keeping many very valuable pieces of Native American art secure in our oversized “safety deposit boxes”. Over 90% of our customers return for their pawn items.

Pawn Vault

Many places will hold pawn items for the minimum amount of time required by the State of New Mexico. However, we hold items for over a year, and many times much longer than that. Perry Null Trading Company is in the “pawn” business, not the “selling” business. That loyalty keeps our customers returning and recommending us to their circle of family and friends.

Perry looking at Pawn

Eventually, if the pawn item has not been paid for we put the item out for sale, as “dead” pawn. Often it is dead pawn jewelry that attracts many of the buying customers to our Trading Post. These are the items that the locals here in the Gallup, New Mexico area wear. The pictures show the dead pawn pricing process.

Dead Pawn being Priced

Navajo artists like Thomas Curtis Sr., Leonard Nez, Wayne Franklin, & Oscar Alexius have something else in common, the Rodeo. All of them have competed and won big events in the All-Indian Professional Cowboys Association. Big Buckles and Trophy Saddles are as common around here as the pick-up truck. Gallup, New Mexico would be considered a rodeo town and we are proud of it.

Gallup, New Mexico is also home to quite a few “safety box” businesses called Pawn Shops. Rodeo stars, ranchers, along with the casual horse rider always are looking for a safe place to keep their valuable saddles. It seems like saddles outnumber horses in this area 100 to 1. When we have tour groups in the Trading Post the visitors are always amazed by the number of saddles in storage.

If you are a saddle person you will enjoy making a trip to Gallup. We have had some great handmade saddles  by local artists, “world champion’ rodeo saddles, custom made saddles, and some very unique special saddles. Plus, if you need a saddle this is the place to find one, from home decorations, bronc saddle, barrel racing, or just your roping saddle we have them all.

Gallup, New Mexico is perfectly located for tourist trade. Especially before the four lane freeways took everyone around town. Route 66 and the train brought many people through this town, the Indian Capital of the World, and many of them shopped for a handmade piece of art to take back to California or the East.

In the early days of Native American handmade art the dealer spent lots of time educating the public about this style of art. Tobe talks about how earlier buyers didn’t put a big value on the art. Much of his time was talking about the quality of turquoise, how the piece was made, and the amount of time it took to make these unique and special pieces. Today that has all changed. Artists like Raymond Yazzie charge tens of thousands of dollars for bracelets.

However, once again it seems like we are doing lots of price justification in the Trading Post. One of the reasons that Native American made pieces of jewelry has a value is because of the materials. The majority of the pieces are made using sterling silver and some type of a stone. Plus, what we all like to be paid for, labor.

Tobe made a business of handmade art selling at a time when material costs were relatively low. We have all seen a pre-1965 dollar US coin, about 1 troy ounce, those were made with 90% silver and cost the Government less than one dollar to make. Tobe also dealt in a time when you saw excellent American turquoise for pennies a carat. Those days are over and it isn’t just because of inflation.

Things have changed radically in the last decade. During this time we have seen silver go from a little more than $4 dollars a troy ounce to a skyrocketing $48. It is important to remember that when you buy sterling silver that has been turned into sheet, wires, or the many other types silversmiths work with they pay an additional cost. Some types of wire can run as much as $40 dollars over the market price. Also, the days of good inexpensive turquoise don’t exist either. It wasn’t that long ago (same last decade) you could walk into a supply house here in Gallup and buy a nice turquoise cab for around 25 cents a carat. Anything over 50 cents and you were really starting to buy something rare and collectible. Now it seems like everything is at least a dollar and if you want a nice piece of Arizona Kingman get ready to spend around $5 a carat.

A tighter materials market reduces the number of craftsmen in the trade, increases the base price of jewelry and typically demands a more savvy buyer. Unfortunately, the dramatic change in materials cost has in some cases tripled the prices of your favorite artists from merely a year ago. Look over our inventory, shop around, and know that Perry Null / Tobe Turpen Trading always creates from the finest materials, buys from the best names in the craft, and delivers a quality heirloom piece every time you shop.

Sterling silver sheet, sterling silver strips to build the channels, and rough turquoise used for the inlay.

Finished silver work before the inlay and buffing. This bracelet before stones already weighs over 4 ounces.

What it looks like once 140 pieces of turquoise have been inlaid and the silver has been shined.

All three of these pieces are handmade using fabricated sterling silver, this is not cast work. A bracelet like this takes time to make, something that you are not going to make in a day.

We have had this style of bracelet made over and over. Ten years ago we would have sold this bracelet for around $280, today this bracelet is $600. The things that have changed are material cost and labor cost. Many of our artists live a distance from town and are hit very hard with costs such as gas. Remember that this is a piece of handmade art, no shortcuts and no skimping on materials.

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If you are not already signed up with a PNTC web store account click here: Affiliate Signup and fill out the information. If you already have a web store account, just sign in here Affiliate Signin and then click the Signup link on the left. We only pay affiliates through PayPal, so the signup process basically just links your paypal email address to an affiliate code. Once you have logged in and signed up for an affiliate account, you should see the following links in the left column:

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Regardless of what you write about, placing the banners in the blog post and using a caption of "Visit our Sponsor" or something similar is a good way to generate traffic to your affiliate account on perrynulltrading.com. Once you have written the blog post, make sure the generate traffic to the post itself by tweeting it, posting it on your facebook wall, etc. If the post is about a Native American topic, feel free to post about it on our facebook wall.

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So we just don’t know – Step One

Turn the piece of jewelry over and look for a hallmark or other markings. Many times we will recognize the hallmark, and if we don’t we have resources in the store that we refer to frequently.

Excellent for Hopi Hallmarks

Great overall source for Hallmarks, has some mistakes but definitely a must have

Really works well if you have the artist name and want to see images of style of work

The internet, of course make sure the source makes sense, but where else
can you find so much information

Step Two

General class the style. Big silver and large stones, good chance it is Navajo. Small stones, cluster, or inlay and you have a reason to believe the work is Zuni. The piece is all silver, overlay, and the bottom oxidized part has a very fine texture and you just might have a piece of Hopi work. Of course, you have Navajo, Zuni, & Hopi artists that don’t make the traditional style of pieces their Tribe is known for, but the number is definitely a minority.

Navajo artists make inlay jewelry, too. However, it usually looks a little different, like on heavier silver or a rough cobble stone style of inlay. The center piece is Zuni, the other two are Navajo made.

Zuni & Navajo cluster work. The heavier silver is a sign that it is Navajo made. However the two cluster pieces on the left represent a Navajo & Zuni artist.

Navajo on the left, Zuni on the right. A very subtle clue is the stone work, notice the Zuni work matches color and size a little better. Also, the Navajo artist just can't help but add more silver to the work, heavy around the stones.

Notice the big difference in silver, a Navajo piece will almost always be heavier silver construction.

Hopi and Navajo all silver pieces. The buckle is Navajo made, notice the design, the End of the Trail, just don't see that often if ever depicted in Hopi silver. Plus, notice the shine, the Navajo piece has a satin finish, the two Hopi an nice high shine.

Another Navajo made or not Hopi made clue, the etched oxidized background is just not as fine as you find on Hopi work. Plus, the End of the Trail is not Hopi.

Zuni and Navajo turquoise cluster pins. Very similar, but do show slight differences. The Zuni pride themselves on stone work and they do not like to show lots of matrix, the Navajo piece shows lots of matrix. Also, remember the silver, the Zuni piece (on the left) has that nice open design, the Navajo piece has the heavier silver look.

Zuni left, Navajo right. The far right pendant is a dead giveaway Navajo made piece, big and chunky.

Cluster rings can be very difficult, because you just can't get a bunch of stones or silver into the piece. The two on the left are Zuni, the stones show a little less matrix. The middle right ring is the easiest to identify because the stones are just a style you find in Navajo, usually purchased already cabbed where the other pieces have been shaped by the artist.

The free form shaped stone on the left is usually a Navajo made giveaway. Plus, coral and turquoise is found made by both Navajo & Zuni artists, but definitely favored to the Navajo.

Zuni left, Navajo right. The Navajo piece is easy to identify, big, heavy, and a nice free form shaped stone.

The Zuni piece has a cast shank with a silver leaf design on the sides, plus the stone is cut by the artist, not something you find in local supply stores, but still difficult to determine, luckily this one is hallmarked by Robert & Bernice Leekya. Typical Navajo style split ring shank.

Step Three

Hallmarks, just like the style of jewelry the markings on the backside can help to identify. Generally, Zuni & Navajo artists will use initials for their artist mark, exp. Roger Skeets will use an R and S stamp on the back of his work. Hopi artists will usually use a symbol, something like a snowflake or sun for example.

Hopi hallmark, a symbol

Navajo & Zuni hallmarks, initials

Step Four

Get some help. That is exactly why we started the forum, join today.

If your idea of “top” means the most expensive the list would read something like this:

1. Lander Blue ($200 - $250 a carat)
2. Number Eight ($100+)
3. Bisbee ($100+)
4. Lone Mountain ($50 - $100)
5. Indian Mountain ($50)
6. Red Mountain ($50)
7. Candelaria ($50)
8. Carico Lake ($35)
9. Here you start getting lots of mines with similar per carat cost

The list above would represent carat prices from the best of that mine. You can find very reasonably priced rocks from the mines above, they just are not the “top” of that mine.

“Is this a good stone” is a frequent question here at the Trading Post. If you like the stone and the color fascinates you, who cares if it is a .25 cents per carat stone or $100 a carat rock. I have seen many well-known artists put not so appealing turquoise in there high dollar art, and at the same time I have seen many artists who demand the high dollar because of the high grade material they use in their creations.

Stone dealers always talk about legendary Hopi artist Charles Loloma accumulating certain turquoise mines to use in his work. Trends like this, especially by popular artists can create cost drivers for certain materials. Also, in the last 10 years you have seen an increase in Japanese collectors who have a very refined taste for American Turquoise, and this has resulted in costs for certain turquoises to increase dramatically. Plus, add the cost of gold into the picture and you have corporations buying up traditional turquoise areas of Nevada and completely destroying any hopes of blue vein recoveries.

If I had two pieces of jewelry in front of me, one with a Lander Blue Turquoise stone and the other a really good piece of something blue, and both are made by the same artist in a similar style I would try to afford the Lander Blue. However, if I didn’t have enough for that Lander Blue piece it would never stop me from getting a great piece of handmade art by a First American artists that had something with a really pretty blue stone.

Hallmarks are used to identify the maker of a piece of art. Usually they are stamped or etched into the silver. Barton Wright’s book “Hallmarks of the Southwest” is often used as a reference, but will not have newer artists because the publication was last updated over 11 years ago. Also, “Hopi Silver” does a nice job of identifying hallmarks specific to Hopi artists. Both of these books are great tools to help you, but you are going to come across hallmarks that are not identified in these publications. Next, you can turn to the internet to help, however that can become difficult because you don’t have a name to start the search with. Sometimes it can become very annoying because you just want to identify the art.

If there is no Hallmark, is it Authentic?

If you have an old piece of Native American jewelry, pre-1960s, there is a real good chance that your piece is not hallmarked. Silversmiths were encouraged to get a hallmark during the boom of the 1970s to identify authentic handmade work. Before this time period most dealers were trying to educate potential buyers of Native American silver of the value, and were not so concerned with the maker’s mark because except for a few artists most were relatively unknown. Things have changed dramatically and today you are rarely come across a piece that has not been hallmarked.

Artists usually order their hallmark stamp and stamps eventually become unusable, and a handful of other reasons a piece of art might not have a hallmark. There are times when you come across a piece of newer art that does not have a hallmark, don’t panic. Remember, if it is an authentic piece of handmade art it didn’t roll of the manufacturing floor after being assembled by robots, artists are human and can forget to stamp their work. What you want to do is to identify the piece has authentic Native American handmade and then worry about the no hallmark. Use places like this forum to help get an answer.